One of Those Facts They Don't Tell You About Immigration...

Your immune sickness stays in your country of origin. Really. I've been sick more often in New Zealand in the last 9 months than I had been in the last 3 years of Canadian living. Thinking of it logically, it makes sense. The germs that we have in NZ are different strains from the North American ones, our bodies aren't used to the new climate, there's different pollens etc. in the air. It doesn't help that we have a drafty, potentially moldy house, but really, I believe it's the lack of immunity that's been doing me in...

I think Carly has a definite advantage as she's exposed to a seething petri dish of illness. Ahhh elementary school, it's definitely got its ups and downs :) She's probably contracted and recovered from more colds without noticing than I can remember having in my life.

So yes, I'm sick. I'm at home right now recovering from another very minor cold. Official rules at work state that if you are displaying symptoms that might be attributed to Swine Flu (I won't go down that rat hole... ) so I worked from home yesterday but today wasn't able to get any work done.

The Kitemare.

Being in the Southern Hemisphere has it's perks but the close proximity to Antarctica isn't really one of them. You see New Zealand is about as close to it as you can get and Antarctica is a windy place that likes to share its breezes with us. So whenever wind coming from there (e.g. from the south) comes to Wellington, the temperature drops by 5-8 degrees, the wind picks up speed and generally makes it pretty unpleasant.

SO! What better weather to go kitesurfing in! To be quite honest, after 3 weeks of unnaturally calm weather, I had a jones on for some kiting, regardless of the conditions.

The conditions were looking good, at least as good as winter Southerlies get. Forecast was for approx. 20 knots of wind, bitter cold and some light rain. Throwing all my gear in the car (including new gloves, my booties a thick, full body wetsuit and my oh-so-sexy neoprene cap-with-ear-flaps) I headed out to pick up T and M and off we went for our first ever kite at Petone.

Petone's not a great beach it turns out. Despite having a nice football field to setup our kites, the beach itself is mostly shells (can cut a kite to shreds), there's tons of logs and other debris and a tree line about 10-15 meters up from the waterline.

The wind started off very light. In fact, we sat around debating if it was even worth rigging up. In the end, having the biggest kite (thus having the lowest wind requirements) I decided to rig and launch. Out on the water, with about 14knots of wind, I was having a good time of it. The water wasn't too cold (probably 10-12 deg) and the waves were reasonable.

Then Trouble started. The wind started building very quickly gusting strongly as it came over the hills. Within 15 minutes it went from 14 to 20-25 knots. Gusts were pulling kiters off the water.

I managed to get back to the beach, but once there things got worse. The wind was so strong that no matter what I did, I was getting dragged. Fighting a losing battle, I was pulled through (and over at times!) the debris, my kite getting snagged on an old stump. Dislodging it sent the kite in a mad kite loop (basically, the kite will start spinning rapidly, creating TONS of power) and quickly cleared the tree line.

I'd had enough, I pulled the safety on my kite, the bar flew out of my hands and the kite crashed down behind the trees, into, it turns out, a model railway layout. Luckily my friend T had seen it all happen and was rushing to grab the kite and make sure I was ok. I was uninjured, I had no idea about the kite, my lines were caught in trees. Suddenly, another kiter signaled to me that he was in trouble. Like me, he'd been tricked into rigging too big a kite and was about to replicate my experience. Unclipping from the safety line, I ran to his rescue while T dealth with my kite.

We got him landed more or less safely (I got some rope burns on my ankle from his lines) and we both headed to where my kite was to assess damage. Surprisingly, there's very very little. A few pinholes in the canopy (easily fixed) was all my big kite sustained.

It felt like i'd been fighting the kite for 20 minutes, but really it was more like 5. It's incredible, when you're in trouble, how much time slows down. At no point did I feel like I was out of control. I knew what to do, how to do it and what would happen when I did. I have my instructor, Kavae from ONU Kitboarding School to thank for that.

I learnt a couple of very important things however:

1. when in doubt, rig the smaller kite first. If you need more power, THEN go to the big kite.
   
2. Kitebuddies are your lifeline. At the end of the day, we all look out for each other and will do what it takes to be safe.

The day ended well, however. After deciding Petone wasn't for us, M and I raced up the coast so that I could get "back on the horse" as it were. We ended up at Raumati beach, which was STUNNING. Gorgeous sand, no obstacles for miles and lots of other kiters out on the water. A reasonable session later, any fears I had were erased and my love of this sport confirmed.

What I Woke Up To This Morning.

Click the image or here for a larger version

Quite literally Smoke on the Water. Now to do something about the lack of Fire in the Sky.

Easy Go Easy ... Come?

People who have known me a while will know that I've always been very self concious about my weight and that in the period before moving to NZ I've been working on getting down to what I considered an appropriate weight for someone my frame and height.

For those of you knew to me, At my worst, I weighed 245lb. 111.13kg. This was right after Carly and I had moved into our first apartment, after years of eating terribly and not doing a whole lot of exercise in University. Through the next 4 years I tried a variety of diets, including low carb, protein power and a variety of exercise programs. They all worked to a certain extent (the low carb thing worked well until I started putting carbs back into my diet, then it exploded) but none of them really got me beyond my first plateau of 220. Still, 25 lb is nothing to snease at. Anyway, the thing they all taught me was that a) I'm a boredom and stress eater and b) the act of tracking what I ate was doing me more good than the fad diets.

So, fueled by a desire to loose some more weight to be more competitive in climbing. I found some links relating to the "hacker diet" which claimed to apply the princples of engineering to dieting. Really it boils down to looking at what goes in, the effect it has on the system and how much leaves through daily activity.

Long story short, before we moved to New Zealand I was down to 205lb, feeling pretty good about myself and had developed a whole batch of new eating habits and methods of cooking.

When we first moved, we didn't have a car, we lived fairly centrally and I had a job where I could take long walks after I'd finished my tasks for the day. I ate as I had in Canada (e.g. keeping me at 205lb reliably) but the marked increase in exercise meant I dropped down to a record low of 193lb. I liked how I looked and felt there and figured that was my ideal weight (Carly would get upset if I lost much more)

Now things have changed. I no longer have much time to walk, I have a high stress job and I'm no longer cooking or shopping for just Carly and I. Shopping for 3, with Wes having radically different eating habits to Carly and I has allowed me to sink into a lot of bad old habits. I snack more, I don't watch the portions like I used to (because I'm cooking in larger quantities etc...) mean that I'm now back at 202 :(

SO! Today I start documenting what I eat again, with emphasis on reducing my calorie intake and thinking about food again. Hopefully that plus starting a new climbing regimen will get my back in to the low 190s before my trip to the Cook Islands (damn you swimsuit season :P )

What a rough month.

Well, it's over, so now we can look back and try and salvage some good out of what has probably been our hardest month since moving to New Zealand, if not ever. As many of you know, Carly and I had to make an emergency flight to Canada, something we're still recovering from. On top of that, we had the house flood, which STILL isn't fixed, we had a 3200$ mistake on our income tax, our car needed fixing and we came home to some of the worst weather Wellington's seen.

But through it all a couple of things made me smile.

While we were in Canada, as the most emotional times were starting to wind down, Carly turned to me and said: "I'm ready to go home". I asked where she meant, and she said: "Back to Wellington".

When we arrived, after 24 hours of straight flying, landing in windy and rainy conditions in Wellington airport, despite it all, seeing the ocean and the mountains released a ton of tension from my shoulders.

In fact, every time I have a rough day of work, or things don't quite work out or we get another "surprise" I look out the window, check out the ocean, the waves and sigh. It's good to be here.